In respect of contractors, I cannot give you a definitive assurance that zero hours contracts are never used.

Perhaps Mayor Fergo – or rather the lackey that writes his answers for him to read out – should be a little more inquisitive about the conduct of his council’s contractors.

Because The BRISTOLIAN is happy to give our readers a ‘definitive assurance’ that, in fact, THEY DO USE ZERO HOURS CONTRACTS.

In fact at the exact time George published his pathetically weak answer, notorious employment agency BLUE ARROW was advertising on the government’s Universal Jobmatch website for Recycling Operatives in the “Bristol area” for:

one of our large recycling clients whohave mutilipul depots all accross the South West [sic]

How nice. An employer running public services that might find you some work – somewhere – if you can get there – if not, you don’t get paid! Great for MISERLY BOSSES, but not such a great offer for someone trying to sign off, though…

Yet another feather in the cap for Fergo’s supposed international city of cool, don’t you think?

Council finally calls time on sickening anti-safety bosses – but will Mayor Fergo take notice?

After a long fight led by determined construction workers, Bristol City Council in early September voted to END THE GRAVY TRAIN of juicy local authority contracts for firms that profit out of ‘blacklists’.

With blacklisting, construction giants like McAlpine secretly trade ILLEGAL FILES on ‘troublesome workers’ – the ones that kick up a fuss over inadequate safety – and keep them out of a job.

Whilst the new council policy won’t affect private sector projects – such as the building of Cabot Circus, where building boss CULLUM MCALPINE admits his company blacklisted brickies and sparks from the site due to whistleblowing on safety issues – it could help workers running council services.

Thanks to the LONG-RUNNING PICKET of May Gurney’s depots by blacklisted workers, union activists and local campaign Bristol Hazards Group that put the blacklist issue onto the table, Kier may yet lose that lucrative council rubbish collection contract…

Focus now shifts to McAlpine’s fellow Merchant Venturer, millionaire mayor George Ferguson and his own CAVALIER APPROACH TO HEALTH AND SAFETY.

It was Mayor Fergo’s outspoken disregard for safety that helped cost cyclist Sean Phillips his life in March (see The BRISTOLIAN #4.3), and in 2009 his deathtrap ‘Millennium Mast’ in the Centre had to be dismantled over fears pieces could fall off and cause fatalities.

And did we mention his fast-becoming-legendary CONTEMPT for ordinary bar workers at his image-over-substance hipster venues like The Tobacco Factory, #1 Harbourside and Canteen?

So whether Gorgeous George actually honours the blacklist ban, or throws his weight behind his corner-cutting rich building boss pals, is still not entirely clear…

A couple of examples emerge of just how charitable our old friends at the SOCIETY OF MERCHANT VENTURERS really are.

First, please step forward TIM ROSS who seems well-versed in that old Venturer trick of turning public money into private wealth.

Ross was, until June last year, Chairman of financial basketcase waste company MAY GURNEY (see The BRISTOLIAN #4.3 & 4.4), currently being rescued from financial collapse via a multi-million pound takeover by anti-union construction outfit, KIER GROUP. Indeed such are the financial problems at May Gurney that Bristol City Council has been discouraged from enforcing the penalty clauses in its waste collection contract with the company as it was thought it would bankrupt them and our rubbish could go uncollected.

However, bankruptcy is not something that’s likely to happen to Ross: once the ink was dry on May Gurney’s contract with the city council, he cashed in 100,000 of his shares in December 2011 to pocket A COOL £235,000 – conveniently before the share price of the company went south! He scarpered as Chairman of May Gurney six months later, just a few months before the share price tumbled below a pound.

Our second all-heart, all-charidee Venturer is CULLUM MCALPINE, scion of the civil engineering giant SIR ALFRED MCALPINE LTD, a firm that is never far from a tasty government contract or two. Cullum is a director of the company and has been personally named in papers lodged with the high court as being “intimately” involved in the operation of a “clandestine” organisation – The Consulting Association – holding a list of people barred from the construction industry. Or trade union blacklisting as it’s generally known.

The court papers claim, “McAlpine was the founding chairman at the [Consulting Association’s] inception in 1993. He was intimately involved in the foundation and operation of TCA. He formally offered Mr Kerr the position of director in August 1993. He finalised the written particulars of Mr Kerr’s employment, sending them to members for approval and obtaining legal advice in relation to them. He oversaw the arrangement of life and health insurance for Mr Kerr as part of his remuneration.”

IAN KERR was the director of The Consulting Association, the organisation which operated the ILLEGAL BLACKLIST OF WORKERS on behalf of big construction firms until he was exposed and prosecuted in 2009.

Perhaps Mr McAlpine should keep better company – as should the Society of Merchant Venturers.

AND ANOTHER THING …

Venturer DAVID ORD, co-owner of the Bristol Port Company at Avonmouth, has donated more than £330,000 to the Tory Party since 2005.

He was also one of forty donors to attend dinners with senior ministers, including the Prime Minister, in the last quarter of 2012.

So, did Ord use his access to ‘Dodgy’ David Cameron to lobby for the scrapping of plans for an electricity-generating Severn estuary barrage?

March 2011

“Did someone mention free Danish pastries?” Castle Park kiosk opens

Having outsourced the running of cafes in Bristol parks to Diamond Catering and bought a load of pricey sheds from Italy on the say-so of a bloke with a financial interest and rumoured family connections to the vendor:

The installation of these kiosks will not only provide a range of high quality drinks and snacks but they will also bring people of all ages together to meet informally and socialise. The kiosks will also provide an important income for re-investment in parks.

May 2012

“Did someone mention free lattes?” Cafés brought in-house by council

Having brought the parks cafés under direct council control following the collapse of Diamond Catering seven months previously:

By bringing the café and kiosk service in-house we know we can offer local people a consistently high quality service at a fair price. The catering service will not only offer a great service for visitors, it will also bring in additional revenue, which will of course be re-invested into the council’s park services.

BONUS:

July 2011

“You know some people throw away perfectly good cream cakes just because they’re a bit past the Best Before date!”

On the announcement of the £96 million waste collection contract awarded to May Gurney:

At least one person in Bristol is pleased with how the city council’s waste contract with SERIAL BLUNDERERS May Gurney has turned out.

While household recycling might go uncollected, streets remain uncleaned and fly tipping is overlooked, the Shitty Hall’s former Waste Services Contracts Manager who personally negotiated and oversaw the flawed and expensive contract with the rubbish waste collectors, one GIOVANNI LOPRESTI, is unlikely to give a toss.

For Giovanni, younger brother of Filton’s low-profile Tory MP Giacomo ‘Jack’ Lopresti, was made an offer he couldn’t refuse and now has a well-paid job as Contract Manager with, er… May Gurney!

It seems that soon after winning the seven-year ‘flagship’ contract in 2011, MG management realised that they couldn’t keep up with the pace of collecting rubbish and recycling throughout the whole of Bristol. So, instead of hiring more staff to spread the workload, the company’s bosses decided instead to MASSAGE THE FIGURES.

Whilst Bristol City Council set the time limits on how long ‘jobs’ should take on collection routes, it relied wholly on May Gurney to tell it whether everything that should be done had been done… Except MG routinely ‘closed’ active jobs, even if they had not actually been completed.

“Doing this saved MG hundreds of thousands of pounds in fines,” a well-placed source told The BRISTOLIAN, claiming also that “over 500 jobs” were dealt with in this way.

And the result? Rubbish piling up uncollected in hundreds of streets from Easton to Clifton and Filwood to Horfield.